Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Tag Archives: entrepreneur

In anticipation of the final round of the 2018 Pitch Dingman Competition, the Dingman Center is interviewing each of the five startup finalists about their progress and upcoming challenges as they prepare to compete for the $15,000 Grand Prize on March 6 in the Grand Ballroom of Stamp Student Union. Learn more and register to attend the competition here.

BEEQBOX

Brianna Queen, Founder & CEO

Junior Information Science major Brianna Queen is the founder of BEEQBOX, a makeup brand targeted to millennials that sells illuminating setting sprays, glitter eyeshadow and lip palettes. Brianna started BEEQBOX in August 2016 as a subscription box service featuring black-owned makeup brands. Once she started getting orders, she decided to work on formulating a product of her own to include. That November, some negative personal experiences gave her the idea to create BEEQBOX’s flagship product, “F*ckboy Repellent”, an illuminating setting spray with packaging that promises its contents are vegan, cruelty-free, all-natural, and will also ward off advances from unworthy men. After sharing a photo of her product on social media it went viral, and was soon featured by popular style sites like Revelist and Instagram influencers who were excited to promote such an on-trend product. As Brianna prepares for Pitch Dingman Competition Finals, she’s looking to take her business to the next level.

BACKGROUND ON ME

I fell in love with entrepreneurship soon after arriving at college, and made it my goal to run a business full-time upon graduating. I went 2 years without any paying customers, but during my junior year I started CardBuddy, a stick-on phone wallet company that now does over $100K annual revenue (and have been running it full-time since graduating last May).

I have some unique customer service strategies which have brought me great results, and I thought I’d share them here!

This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the nine student startups who are participating in the Terp Startup summer incubator phase of our Fearless Founders accelerator program. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

2B

Former elementary school teacher Nina Silverstein MBA ’17 is the founder of social venture 2B, a children’s book and clothing company that aims to inspire children by giving them a means to envision what they want to be when they grow up. The t-shirts would be printed with representations of what, for example, a doctor would wear when doing his/her job, and the books would contain a kid-friendly overview of what a doctor does and how a child can prepare to become one when they grow up. These sets of t-shirts and books would be available in a wide variety of professions, some that many children, especially in underprivileged circumstances, may never have considered or even been aware of. Nina hopes that 2B will break down barriers and broaden horizons for children of all backgrounds, encouraging them to believe that with hard work, they can achieve anything they set their minds to.

This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the nine student startups who are participating in the Terp Startup summer incubator phase of our Fearless Founders accelerator program. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

Flee

Didac Hormiga, a rising junior at University of Maryland, is the founder and CEO of Flee (Find Local Events and Entertainment), a location-based social media app that helps people find events and entertainment happening around them. As a marketing and information systems double-major with a minor in technology entrepreneurship and a knack for design (he designed the wireframes for the app himself), Didac’s diverse skillset is complemented by his CTO, Ian Sawyer, whom he met while interning at Talk Local. Together, they’re developing a platform with features such as video stories, discounts and transportation options that provide convenient benefits to both users and venues who partner with the app. Friends find cool events to attend together, venues gain access to an effective marketing channel, and everyone gets to have fun.

This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the nine student startups who are participating in the Terp Startup summer incubator phase of our Fearless Founders accelerator program. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

GlowGadget

The sole founder of GlowGadget, Shane Salta, is a computer engineer turned Smith School of Business MBA graduate who is looking to launch a line of t-shirts that feature smart LED lighting technology. The lighting on the prototype shirt is flexible and seamlessly integrated into the fabric of the shirt itself, in addition to being totally mesmerizing. Through connectivity with an app, the wearer has the ability to fully customize the appearance of the lights to produce colorful designs, patterns and animations. The shirt has exciting potential to dazzle at sports events, where wearers might synchronize a message to support their favorite team, or at a music festival, where the shirt could make wearers an attraction unto themselves. As both a tinkerer and an entrepreneur, Shane is passionate about producing a shirt that is both technologically superior and has mass market appeal.

The Dingman Center is pleased to announce the addition of another successful founder, Rashad Moore, to our impressive group of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence. Rashad is excited to become more integrated into the Dingman community and to do what he enjoys most of all—helping young entrepreneurs. He started attending Dingman Fridays a few years ago and loved getting access to smart people with great ideas. He states, “Dingman is doing a lot of great stuff—if I had this in college, I may be further along.”

Rashad began his career in the defense industry in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., working for Northrop Grumman where he saw an unmet need for software engineers within the defense industry. After learning how to win government contracts while working for Clear Solutions, Rashad quickly realized it didn’t matter what company got the government bid, they would still come to him for software engineering.

This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the eight student startups who are participating in the Terp Startup summer incubator phase of our Fearless Founders accelerator program. Participating student entrepreneurs received $3,500 stipends that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over six weeks in the summer.

Picture this. You’re a bride, and today is your wedding day, the day you are meant to look more beautiful than any other day in your life. Every meticulously planned moment of the day seems to be going off without a hitch, until your makeup artist shows up an hour late. Forgetting about the bridesmaids, she hurriedly goes to work on your face, only to leave it a caked on, ghoulish mess. With no time for a do-over, you spend your last moments before the ceremony not quietly reflecting on the beautiful journey you and your significant other are about to embark upon, but rather hastily adding and removing makeup with a compact mirror. You arrive to your venue 30 minutes late, stressed and feeling less than fabulous.

No exaggeration: this is a real thing that happened to a friend of mine. On the most recent season of HBO’s Girls, Marnie undergoes a similar trauma on her special day. Booking a freelance makeup artist, expecting them to show up on time and also give you the end result you want is a task so notoriously difficult that it lends itself to parody. But it doesn’t have to be so hard. POSH, a University of Maryland startup founded by rising junior Nathalyn Nunoo, is a beauty consultation service that takes the stress out of booking freelance makeup artists.

This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the eight student startups who are participating in the Terp Startup summer incubator phase of our Fearless Founders accelerator program. Participating student entrepreneurs received $3,500 stipends that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over six weeks in the summer.

High-fashion is typically associated with wealth, luxury and lavish excess. Nonich, a high-fashion brand out of University of Maryland, is working to change that narrative with their socially conscious line of street couture fashion apparel. The brand’s three founders, Damar Bess, Rodrick Campbell and Henry Blanco, come from a diverse cultural background that informs their clothing aesthetic as well as their vision.

This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the eight student startups who are participating in the Terp Startup summer incubator phase of our Fearless Founders accelerator program. Participating student entrepreneurs received $3,500 stipends that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over six weeks in the summer.

I am still relatively new to the Dingman Center, so when Sam Feldman was called to the stage at this year’s Rudy Awards to accept his award for Student Entrepreneur of the Year, I could not fully appreciate how deserving he was of the title. After talking with him more at Terp Startup and interviewing him for this blog post, I would like to give my full, ringing endorsement of Sam, not only for his accomplishments as an entrepreneur but for his strength of character.

Have you ever identified a problem and thought to yourself, “Someone should invent something that solves this?” Have you ever thought to yourself, “I have a better way of doing this?”

If you answered yes, you may not have realized it at the time, but you were thinking like an entrepreneur. Maybe you seized the moment and brought your idea to life but, more likely, you made an excuse for why being an entrepreneur wasn’t right for you. I know this because, before taking the leap and starting my business, I navigated through miles of these same excuses.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common objections raised by potential female founders: